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Shadow Insurance

Author

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  • Ralph S. J. Koijen
  • Motohiro Yogo

Abstract

Life insurers use reinsurance to move liabilities from regulated and rated companies that sell policies to shadow reinsurers, which are less regulated and unrated off‐balance‐sheet entities within the same insurance group. U.S. life insurance and annuity liabilities ceded to shadow reinsurers grew from $11 billion in 2002 to $364 billion in 2012. Life insurers using shadow insurance, which capture half of the market share, ceded 25 cents of every dollar insured to shadow reinsurers in 2012, up from 2 cents in 2002. By relaxing capital requirements, shadow insurance could reduce the marginal cost of issuing policies and thereby improve retail market efficiency. However, shadow insurance could also reduce risk‐based capital and increase expected loss for the industry. We model and quantify these effects based on publicly available data and plausible assumptions.

Suggested Citation

  • Ralph S. J. Koijen & Motohiro Yogo, 2016. "Shadow Insurance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 1265-1287, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:emetrp:v:84:y:2016:i::p:1265-1287
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ralph S. J. Koijen & Motohiro Yogo, 2015. "The Cost of Financial Frictions for Life Insurers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(1), pages 445-475, January.
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    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. A Primer on Securities Lending
      by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets on 2016-11-07 19:49:47
    2. Too Big to Fail: MetLife v. FSOC
      by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets on 2016-04-04 17:34:30
    3. Taking the **Sock** out of FSOC
      by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets on 2018-10-29 12:24:21

    Citations

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    Cited by:

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    2. Matteo Benetton, 2017. "Lenders' Competition and Macro-prudential Regulation: A Model of the UK Mortgage Supermarket," 2017 Meeting Papers 1001, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Stefan Lewellen & Adi Sunderam & Mark Egan, 2017. "The Cross Section of Bank Value," 2017 Meeting Papers 1283, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Braun, Alexander & Ben Ammar, Semir & Eling, Martin, 2019. "Asset pricing and extreme event risk: Common factors in ILS fund returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 59-78.
    5. Abbassi, Puriya & Bräuning, Falk, 2018. "The pricing of FX forward contracts: Micro evidence from banks' dollar hedging," Discussion Papers 42/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    6. Shi Chen & Jyh-Horng Lin & Wenyu Yao & Fu-Wei Huang, 2019. "CEO Overconfidence and Shadow-Banking Life Insurer Performance Under Government Purchases of Distressed Assets," Risks, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-25, March.
    7. Mark Egan & Stefan Lewellen & Adi Sunderam, 2017. "The Cross Section of Bank Value," NBER Working Papers 23291, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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